


B&E

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: M/M, more bed sharing!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 06:12:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16948512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: It's not that Peter never goes radio silent; it's just that Johnny worries.





	B&E

It’s not that Peter never went radio silent.

Sure, he didn’t universe hop on a regular basis like some people Johnny knew, and he rarely hitched a ride to the next star system over with the Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy, but he was still _Spider-Man_. Sometimes he ended up in the Hudson, beaten half to death, and slunk home to sleep for four days straight and metaphorically (Johnny assumed) lick his wounds.

But this time there’d been nothing on the news or on Twitter- no battle with the Rhino, no showdown with Mysterio- and still Peter hadn’t been responding to texts, phone calls, sky writing, smoke signals, or even _e-mails_ for over a week, from either Johnny or the Avengers.

Johnny had tried to call over to the _Bugle_ to ask them what’s what, but Joe Robertson had been too busy to talk to him, Betty Brant had been too suspicious of his line of questioning to give him a straight answer, and good ol’ J. Jonah hadn’t let him get a full sentence out before launching into a full blown rant about…

Well, Johnny had hung up before Jonah could get to the point, but it definitely had nothing to do with wayward freelance photographers.

The rest of Johnny’s mental rolodex of “People Peter Actually Likes” was similarly useless–Flash was off on an assignment and similarly but less-mysteriously incommunicado, Harry’s secretary was screening Johnny’s calls, and he didn’t know how to ask Aunt May when she’d last heard from Peter without tipping her off that something was wrong.

Even MJ, Johnny’s last bastion of hope, didn’t know any more about what was going on than Johnny did.

(“He’s a cockroach,” she’d said, sounding thoroughly amused, “and I mean that in the fondest way possible. Whatever’s going on, he’ll come through it okay.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Johnny had asked, frustrated, and got nothing in response but silence for one aching moment.

“Well,” she finally said, almost too quietly for the phone’s microphone to pick it up, “I just don’t have the energy to worry about those kinds of what if’s any more, Johnny. I’ve been through this too many times.”)

So Johnny was running out of ideas, and Peter was running out of friends–for a guy who knew everybody, barely anybody seemed to know _him_ all that well.

“Do you think I could get in touch with the Black Cat?” Johnny asked. “She and Patsy Walker used to be pretty chummy, right? Maybe they still text sometimes.”

He’d been moodily eating sugar free, low fat “ice cream” straight from the carton for the last hour, and Sue didn’t even look up from whatever it was she was cooking to smack him lightly upside the head with a forcefield.

“Hey!” he snapped, his flare of anger reducing his not-ice cream to sludge in half a second.

Sue just rolled her eyes.

“Go over to his apartment,” she said, tiredly. “If he’s not there, call up Stephen Strange, or Dr. Xavier, or one of the multitudes of people we know at SHIELD, or, hell, steal some of his dirty laundry and let Wolverine get a whiff of it; you don’t need to sit here in my kitchen–”

Johnny snorted. “If this is anyone’s kitchen, Sue, it’s mine.”

She shot him a sour look, pointing at the door with a knife. “Johnny, my point is that you have options here, if you really think he’s in trouble. So just _go_.”

“Well, if you insist…” He drawled, dismounting slowly from his chair.

“Johnny,” Sue said, “I really, _really_ do.”

That was pretty much the only excuse he needed; he’d been resisting going by Peter’s apartment for the last couple days, convinced it was too big of an invasion of privacy–and now here was level headed Sue, practically giving him permission to break in.

He darted forward to smack a kiss to her cheek. “Thanks, sis.”

“Don’t break in!” She yelled after him, as he took off for the roof.

“Can’t hear you!” he shouted back, and then he was flinging himself off into the cool Manhattan air.

Johnny didn’t let himself think about it as he flew. He focused instead on the twists and the turns of a less than familiar route–it wasn’t that he never went to Peter’s apartment, so much as that he more often took a cab. The Human Torch was about as conspicuous as a human shaped ball of flame could possibly be, and if there was one thing Peter liked, it was to stay as far under the radar as he could.

(While still being, you know, Peter Parker. He was pretty hard to miss, most days.)

The fire escape didn’t even rattle when Johnny set down on it–not because his touch was feather light, but because the thing was fully and completely rusted into place. He crouched down, flames extinguished, and knocked lightly on Peter’s window.

There was only stillness and darkness behind the tasteful curtains that Aunt May _had_ to have been the one to purchase, and Johnny knocked again, harder this time. Still nothing.

“What’s that?” he asked the empty air, setting himself aflame even as he hopped the railing to swoop close to the other window–the one that wasn’t accessible from the fire escape so nosy teenagers couldn’t reach it, but wall-crawling webheads could. “Did something just crash? I think he might have just fallen and hurt himself! I can hear him crying for help!”

And Johnny threw open the window.

He paused there, one leg propped up on the sill and the other dangling down into the apartment, to let the sudden frantic beating of his heart calm back down. Peter definitely wasn’t home, and he hadn’t been for some time; there was a thin film of dust on every surface.

(And Johnny meant _every_ surface, not just the ones Peter was too lazy to clean with regularity.)

“Alright,” he told himself. “Alright. There’s no reason to panic. It’s the spider-usual, right? MJ said so, and MJ’s always right. She special ordered that bag of M&M’s that have it printed on them and everything.”

He slipped down from the window, shoving his hands in his pockets and slowly turning as he moved out into the center of Peter’s living room, taking every inch of it in. Maybe there was something here that would give him a hint, like a corkboard full of red pins and twine, connecting newspaper clippings together, or a convenient police radio that would crackle to life and announce that Spider-Man and a sentient refrigerator were having a knockdown, drag out brawl in the New York City subway system, delays imminent.

“If I had super strength and a danger sense that still managed to let me throw myself off of buildings, what animal-themed nutjob would I be fighting this time?” Johnny asked, and then something slammed into the wall hard enough to rattle Peter’s pictures in their frames.

That something groaned, one web-gloved hand fumbling blindly for a window pane that was already pushed up, and Johnny practically flung himself across the room to catch Peter as he tumbled into the apartment.

“Why’re you in m’partmen’?” he mumbled, all blank white eye lenses and grimy spandex as he slumped into Johnny’s grip.

Johnny had never been happier to ruin a five hundred dollar sweater than to have Spider-Man bleeding all over it. “I’m here because Sue was worried about you,” he huffed, dragging Peter’s arm up and over his shoulder and heaving him to his feet. “What’d you do, go ten rounds with the Hulk?”

Peter gestured wordlessly at his bedroom door, an exhausted little flail of his hand that was so pathetic that Johnny didn’t bother pushing for an answer.

“Yeah, you smell disgusting,” he agreed, maneuvering Peter towards his bathroom. “A shower’s a good idea. Which one was it this time, the Hudson or the East River?”

“No river.” Peter dropped like a stone onto the edge of his tub, groaning, and peeled off his mask.

“For once,” Johnny said dryly, crouched down in front of Peter–to do something useful, ostensibly, but he froze instead, something tight in his chest. “What _happened_ , Pete?” he asked, his hand reaching out without his permission to touch the edges of a truly nasty black eye.

“Long story,” Peter muttered, and he folded forward, eyes fluttering shut, to rest his forehead on Johnny’s shoulder. There was a fine tremble in his long limbs–exhaustion, the fading effects of adrenaline, maybe relief to be home. Whatever it was, Johnny just wanted to hug him close.

He settled for a hand on the back of Peter’s neck, cranking his core temperature up a couple of notches to provide a soothing pulse of warmth, and Peter _groaned_.

“Have you ever considered a career as a licensed masseur?” he mumbled.

“Sure, I have; I’m just too busy playing nursemaid to byronic heroes such as yourself to get the proper licensing.”

Peter snorted, then dragged himself slowly upright. “Shower,” he muttered, practically to himself, and looked up at the showerhead for one long moment as if contemplating pouring himself into it fully clothed.

“Shower,” Johnny agreed, an admonishing note in his voice as he reached out to find the seam of the suit.

Peter jumped guiltily, flushing red with embarrassment, and raised his arms to let Johnny pull the shirt over his head. “I’ve got the rest,” he promised, before Johnny’s subsequent awkward moment of hesitation could become an even more awkward question, and peeled off his gloves and booties.

“Good.” Johnny nodded decisively, ruthlessly quashing the flush that wanted to creep up the back of his neck and shoving himself to his feet. Peter was looking up at him, something guarded in his eyes, and Johnny cleared his throat awkwardly as he sidled backwards towards the door. “I’ll just… find something less bloody to change into, and make myself at home on your couch.”

Relief flashed across Peter’s face. “Yeah, sure, Johnny. Have at it.”

By the time Peter was done- stitching himself back together as well as showering, by the looks of things- Johnny was curled up in an oversized ESU hoodie and half asleep in his bed.

“Thought you said you were gonna make yourself at home on the couch,” Peter said tiredly, flopping down next to him. He was half-sitting up, with a sandwich in one hand and a giant glass of milk in the other; Johnny hadn’t even noticed him pass through to the kitchen.

“Your couch fucking sucks,” Johnny mumbled. He curled sideways to jam his face into the threadbare t-shirt covering Peter’s stupidly muscular bicep.

“I don’ thingk my madriss’s mush be’er,” Peter pointed out, too busy scarfing down his dinner to speak without spewing crumbs.

Johnny made a disgusted noise, and Peter washed it down with milk. Then, charmingly, he burped, leaning across Johnny to set the glass on his bedside table.

“We can’t be friends any more,” Johnny muttered.

“Sure thing, Torchy,” Peter agreed. He adjusted himself down flat on his back carefully, mindful of the extensive bruising across his torso that Johnny had tried not to stare at in the bathroom, and then clapped twice to turn off the lights.

“I can’t believe it’s 2018 and you still have a fucking Clapper.”

“I don’t have to listen to you make fun of me; we’re not friends any more.”

Johnny let out a gusty sigh, and smiled into the darkness when Peter laughed sleepily. They lay there like that for a long, comfortable moment, with Johnny ensconced in Peter’s sweatshirt and one of Peter’s sock clad feet bumping lazily against his shin. He was pretty sure he was going to get a good night’s sleep for the first time since his texts had started going unanswered.

“Hey, Johnny,” Peter said.

“Mmh?” Johnny may or may not have been using one of Peter’s arms like a pillow. He was blaming it on the exhaustion.

“Did you break into my apartment?”

Johnny thought about it for a moment. He could feel Peter’s eyes on him in the dark, growing increasingly exasperated. “There was no breaking involved,” he said, finally, and Peter snorted. “Besides,” he added, “it’s not like you’ve never broken into the Baxter Building.”

They were quiet again. Peter shifted to curl his arm around Johnny properly, tucking him close to his side in a maneuver they were probably going to chicken out of discussing properly in the morning.

“Hey, Peter,” Johnny mumbled.

“Yeah, Johnny?”

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, Johnny.” Peter’s fingers trailed over his shoulder, leaving the metaphorical kind of sparks in their wake. “Me, too.”


End file.
